Time is Ticking
by el sombrerero
Summary: Time plays against us." Though she knew very well it was more or less against me.
1. Changes

_**Time is Ticking**_

_Changes_

"Time plays against us." Though she knew very well that it was more or less against me; she didn't try to murder him, after all.

Time, for her, it meant growing up; I always played the fool and tried to set aside those thoughts with more tea cups and more biscuits and butter; though butter never suited the works and Time remained static and angry at me.

Time, however, did not know her at all; he was indifferent so he never halted in her favor. Time, for her, meant growing up and forgetting all that she once was and all that once defined her; it meant leaving aside childish memories and dreams and simply losing herself in the logic that came with growing up.

For me, on the other hand, it worked differently; no, in fact it did not work at all; Time was static, he never passed by; he took away everything that surrounded me... Time was dead and I had the murder weapon.

Every single time she came through that door that separated her world from ours, I saw her different; something was always changing and she simply looked pass that, look pass that little dullness that accumulated inside her eyes.

I might be insightful, though it took me a while to realize that the Alice I had met was not the same that came through that door every single time. She was always changing, the weed bloomed before me into a pretty flower; though I could still notice that behind her eyes her old self was hidden; it usually took half a cup of tea to realize this, but the fourth time that she came back, I simply couldn't find her anymore.

"Your hair needs awful cutting and I feel obliged to inform you that you might have had too much cake today... you look awfully taller than before."

"Before? Before what?"

"Before yesterday."

She smiled bitterly, her eyes traveling from mine to her lap and back up again. "Hatter, last time I was here was 2 years ago."

Time, well of course, he didn't even have the courtesy of informing me that the world was still moving and changing even when I wasn't at all; the tea cup all of the sudden felt heavier as well as my hat; I've never been fond of taking it off, but I did so and the cup ended on the floor alongside with various quantities of shattered porcelain that had once been a lovely tea set.

"Of course, foolish, really, the clock must not be working properly, it needs new batteries, it's broken perhaps, I probably threw it by accident, it probably fell, it probably hit the ground and broke itself. Of course, how could I not notice? I haven't the slightless idea how this happened, it just did and 2 years went by like 2 days, but no, you don't change like that, change is gradual, not in the blink of an eye."

She looked at me sadly and stood up, walked towards me, kneeled beside me and grabbed my hands, which had been crumpling the napkins and tearing them apart. "Hatter time passes by quickly, sometimes." 


	2. A Proposal

"_Hatter time passes by quickly, sometimes."_

"Though sometimes he should at least warn me about it." I looked up at her eyes; she wasn't Alice; I couldn't distinguish between her old self and the girl who was now looking at me concerned with her blue eyes. "Otherwise I just won't know."

"Why would you want to know such thing?" She looked curious, she looked like herself. She was Alice again and her eyes where wide, waiting for an answer, and her mouth partly open, breathing in and out steadily. Though I did not have an answer for her.

"I... I just want to know; Time works for everyone, not for me, he stopped being kind for me and the favors stopped too." I knew she didn't understand; I knew that she wasn't going to unless I managed to form a coherent sentence, though that was going to prove to be a difficult task to do. Her eyes were just looking back and forth into mine and I just couldn't say a word.

"Hatter... you're rambling again." She cupped my face in between her soft hands; she looked worried; she looked like her usual self, only that those eyes were older and that smile was bitter and the hair needed awful cutting and perhaps a ribbon attached to it.

"Not even Alice at all." It was true, she was not Alice, not the one that I had met.

"What's so wonderful about time, anyways?" She stood up and sat on the chair next to me; she looked curious, really expecting an answer. And I did have one this particular occasion, but it would mean that I would have to leave aside the foolishness and, for once, say something that made sense to her.

"You grow up, for one. I'm static, really, like a painting, completely static and two dimensional, and empty. I do not feel real unless I'm with realness."

"Though if you grew up, you probably wouldn't be here anymore."

"Though with the point of Time favoring me long... long _time_ ago, I might as well have just stopped him on a certain particular era... when I didn't notice that everything was changing. You changed, I noticed, and I felt unreal."

Her eyes looked into mine, not really caring to form any word or to answer that unasked question I was dying to throw to her. She knew it all too well, though her old self always showed up at the most inconvenient moments and she pretended that she didn't know a thing and asked many, many, many questions of things that just couldn't be answered without murdering Time for a while.

"You are as real as I am," she said finally, avoiding my eyes completely, knowing all too well what that look meant and what I was asking from her.

"As real as a dream of yours can get," I answered, copying her bitter smile and looking down like she did.

"I never really meant..."

"Say what you mean and mean what you say," I interrupted her, bringing a pleasant smile to her features, but it always disappeared, vanished like the cat did... that smile was never permanent; it fluttered by whenever a mention of us and the past came by. "I just want you to stay the same."

She looked at me directly in the eyes, eyebrows close together remarking confusion, something that has been a characteristic trait of her since the first day. "Stay the same? And pray tell what you exactly mean by that?"

"It is obvious that everything points toward you not growing up."

"And why wouldn't I do so?"

"Growing up, aside from different changes occurring in your absolutely Alice body, means that you'll leave aside those funny memories that often come back to you as dreams. Logic is their enemy, you'll be haunted by it and it'll eat and rip off all that makes you be you. Logic will engulf everything that once gave a meaning to who you were and who you are right now, only to change the Alice that I know; you just won't stay the same."

She seemed upset but, then again, there was a very sad smile gracing her; she seemed lost in between something that I just couldn't see and my words that probably didn't sound as good to her as they did in my head; though who's to blame me, since my head is not much than a place to hold my hat.

"And what do you suggest me to do?"


	3. Stay With Me

Bread-and-butterflies fluttered in my stomach; I simply could not contain the joy of her asking me such thing. _Stay_ was the obvious answer, though as much as she stayed here, she would still grow old, and I would still witness such horrible unremarkable thing; though it wouldn't be as horrible and unremarkable, and unrequited had I grown old with her, too.

"Perhaps you could stay..." The words escaped me; I simply could not contain them, could not make much of anything that was going through my already fragmented mind. There was everything in there, from slaying Jabberwocks, to rabbits with waistcoats and being late; though the remarkable thought, and the most frequent one I've had throughout the days after Frabjous day had occurred, was about her being there, _with_ me.

"And what would I accomplish if I decide to do so? What should happen next?"

I smiled widely, really obvious to her that I was delighted, not even closely... no, I was absolutely and completely in love with the idea of her staying. "You could... we could, perhaps? No, too soon. You perhaps could, I don't know... have a tea party every 6 o'clock? With me? Perhaps?"

She was smiling as wide as I was doing so, her eyes transforming into that of the Alice I had met, _my _Alice with muchness.

"And suppose that I come here every six o'clock, then what?"

I struggled with words, images crashing in with them, images of the possible future that she was supposing with me; though not entirely there with me, as in _us_, more as in _you and me spending the afternoons together_... more as in _I'll stay here but I won't be __**with**__ you_, and the distance felt incredibly enormous, a monstrosity in between the two of us. It was never going to be _us_, though a _you and me_ could suffice for now.

"Then I could talk you in to live here. Not with me, entirely, find your place, though you already have one here. Spend mornings and evenings with me, though not entirely with me, no, that'd be silly. Then you could probably, completely, and utterly forget about the upper world, forget about the growing Alice that reminds me that you won't be here forever..."

She looked at me, eyes completely focused on mine now, completely lost, completely wondering into whatever had formed into my little head, completely being _my_ Alice again. "Hatter, you know very well that I'd still grow up and..."

"No 'buts' here, you could always do the same as I; you could always... if you wish, of course, because you just won't do something that you don't want to, not that's not the Alice I know; that is not _my_ Alice; well, if you want, yes, you could possibly anger Time. He is easy to anger, easy to make upset, and it'll stop for you too, and you won't need to grow up, and I just won't lose you."

After finishing the utterly long sentence, I realized that I had referred to her as _mine_, bad thing to do. Alice was not a trophy to show around and own, Alice wasn't such. Alice was... Alice was who she was because she knew it all too well. She never hesitated, and now I had insulted her; I had questioned who she was and dimmed her as an object, a possession, and I felt awful, terribly awful. I just had to wait to see if she had caught on that after that rambling of words meshed together.

Which she did.

"I take offense that you think you posses me."

Of course I had to further explain to her that I did not thought so; I did not posses who she was, which upset me altogether, because I'd probably could never be _her_ Hatter as she was _my_ Alice.

"Do not feel so. I suppose I need to further expand on the supposition of yours about me possessing you... it's more of me possessing a memory of you... I don't want to lose that memory of you as who you were and who you are right now, because, as much as your muchness had dissipated somewhat behind those eyes of yours, you are still the same Alice as you were before."

She stood up; I prepared myself for her to get away from me as soon as possible, though that never happened. She towered over me, mighty and beautiful tower and she hugged me, clung to me the way I wish I could cling to her.

"Hatter," she said, with that voice of hers that reminded me that I wasn't completely mad; after all, she was mad with me. "Hatter, say what you mean and mean what you say." She cupped my face again, begging for me to just let go of those thoughts and unasked questions once and for all.


	4. Forever

"_Hatter, say what you mean and mean what you say." She cupped my face again, begging for me to just let go of those thoughts and unasked questions once and for all._

"I'm a bit perplexed, what exactly do you meant to say, dear Alice?" And I was only met by silence. He and I had never gotten along, so I simply had to say a thing to kill him, too. "Stay here." Two complicated words that made their way through me. "I just couldn't tell you, couldn't bother you with the ramblings of my mind, or what's left of it, but I would really love to have you here, perhaps every day, perhaps every night, perhaps forever? But of course, forever won't suffice, not for you, at least; forever will consume you and I'd still be here, watching you vanish, and I don't want _my_ Alice to vanish."

"And what do you propose, then?" Alice smiled to me and I couldn't help but feel a battle between bread-and-butterflies within me. Perhaps, it could possibly be that she did want to stay?

"I propose to you the outrageously idea of you never leaving Underland again. Make Time upset, have tea parties with me every single day and night, stay here, forever _with_ me... and if forever might not suffice for you and I, then we could always murder Time completely."

She smiled, bent down, blue eyes looking into me and the bread-and-butterflies had stopped moving for once. It was all static and I felt terribly afraid of that silence that engulfed us. She approached more, kissed me, soft pink lips and beautiful blue eyes, hair that needed cutting, but it was Alice, _my_ Alice.

I regained my mind once her lips had left mines. She still hadn't answered. Time was ticking for her, she needed to answer. "Time is ticking, deary." I waited until she sat back down, my face flushed, mimicking hers.

"It could stop for me, couldn't it?" She took her cup of tea and poured some more in. "It is nothing more than just a clock, not quite remarkable. It just gives you the o'clock of the day, what's so great about it?"

"How many times do I have to explain to you that he's not an it; he's a he. Besides, I don't think he'll appreciate that you are talking like that about hi…m" I lost myself again in the rambling, that until I realized what she had tried to say.

"Alice," I said carefully, not wanting to trouble her with further explanations, because explanations were not required, but my mind really needed a further stretching of what she had tried to say. "Say what you mean and mean what you say, if it's not too much trouble."

She smiled widely at me, not saying a word, and I simply wanted to implode. "Well, if I'm going to stay," she resumed, "might as well anger him once and for all."

"Time plays against me, dear, are you sure you want to do this too?" I had to ask, had to do it because she had to know very well that Time might never work for us ever again. She had to be sure that she didn't want to change.

"It plays against _us_ now; besides, Time has stopped ticking for me too."

And I could hear that too; all the clocks covered with butter that only worked whenever Alice was there with me, worked only for her, of course, had stopped ticking. Time had stopped ticking for her as well.

"We have forever to talk about this now."

"Forever as in _you and me_?" I whispered, not yet quite believing it, not quite, not quite. She had done it, had decided to stay, but was it _with_ me or the _I'll stay here but it won't be __**with**__ you_?

"More as in _with you_, really, but, for now, _you and me_ could work."

"It could, perhaps, it could, but, eventually... eventually it could not, and I don't want to pester you, and I just simply do not want to..."

I was cut short by her grabbing my hand. "It won't be forever just _you and me_. Time has stopped ticking for _us_. It's not you alone anymore."

Alice never seemed more herself... she was the same curious child I had met long before, her eyes shining, her smile wide and simply beautiful, her muchness still intact. She was _my_ Alice, and I've never felt I knew her more, even when it was a total and blatant contradiction, for I had been seeing so many Alices lately, so many of her. Some had lost their muchness, some others seemed to regain more of their old selves, but throughout the whole time that I've seen Alice change, I've never came across with the Alice that I have first met, and she was still intact, eyes blue and smile as wide as Chess' smile, and she was going to be here, _with_ me; Time wouldn't work for her anymore, so it wouldn't take the Alice that I loved away from me. She was going to stay here. It was going to be an _us_... forever.

"How about if we celebrate you not losing your muchness, though more like me not losing you, with a cup of tea?" 


End file.
